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About

We are a diverse group of concerned community members fighting the proposed gang injunction(s) in Oakland. Contact us at stoptheinjunction [at] gmail [dot] com.

These are our demands:

1) Stop the Injunctions and All Police Violence

Gang injunctions spread the violence of policing further into our communities, making it easier for the police and the courts to break apart our families and neighborhoods leading to cycles of imprisonment and destabilizing our communities.

Gang Injunctions support racial profiling, strip youth and adults of their civil rights, and increase the chances that more Gary Kings, Oscar Grants, and Derrick Joneses may be killed.

Gang Injunctions use policing as a way to address harm and violence, and take away from programs and services that address the roots of harm and violence, while stealing limited resources and energy from solutions that work.

Gang injunctions do not work. Studies of gang injunctions in cities across the US found that they either did not significantly reduce incidences of violence in the area or actually increased incidences of violence in the targeted and surrounding areas.

2) Community Self-Determination (we know what our communities need; we have our own solutions)

A healthy and sustainable city is built and maintained by prioritizing the economic, social, and cultural needs of all our communities.

Families, neighborhoods, and communities are strongest when they have access to and decision-making power in quality education, healthcare, and full and empowering employment.

In order to begin to build up our communities to be more vibrant and self-determined, we demand:

– Investment in People, Not Police and Prisons by reallocating very dollar spent on prison construction to be used to create smaller classroom sizes, higher teacher salaries, and after-school programs; ending the curfew for people of probation and parole; repealing the Three Strikes Law; and building ways for harm and violence to be address and for people to be help accountable on a community-level.

– Oakland stands up with Youth by creating and maintaining accessible, and safe youth centers, and by keeping our schools open and well-funded; and building reliable counseling services and alternative forms of dealing with trauma and harm, as well as by developing alternative community-based systems that help youth to flourish and learn without punishment and separation from their families and communities.

The struggle to defeat the Gang Injunctions is linked to the struggle to defend our communities against ICE raids, detention and deportation.

We demand that Oakland maintain its commitment to being a Sanctuary City and aggressively fight the criminalization of immigrant communities and end all collaborations with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

4) Affordable Housing and Stable Employment (Stop Gentrification)

Gang Injunctions destabilize communities by criminalizing and stigmatizing whole neighborhoods where people live and work.

Communities are often vulnerable to gentrification when home values get driven down, access to affordable housing is limited, unemployment rates are high, and quality education and other services is not available. All areas targeted by Gang Injunctions in Oakland have also been sites of aggressive gentrification.

Defending access to full and stable employment and affordable and secure housing helps to protect against gentrification and the destruction of community and cultural life in our neighborhoods.

We demand affordable/ low-income housing that takes into account the annual salaries and city living expenses of families and working class people.

We demand accountability from the Planning Department regarding the environmental impacts of any development in our communities. We also demand affordable housing units be inclusive of community programs rather than be utilized as corporate storefronts.

We believe gang injunctions are being used to push poor and working class people of color out of their neighborhoods. We need to ask, why these neighborhoods, why more police, and why now?

5) Accountability from City Government and Increased Decision-Making Power for All Oakland Residents

We will not allow elected officials or governing bodies to disregard our concerns and continue to pass laws, ordinances, and resolutions to be implemented in our communities without an inclusive and representative community decision-making process.

We demand that city officials attend town hall meetings in directly targeted communities to hear a representative voice of the people.

Community members’ concerns and suggestions must be included in any proposed laws or policies.

Hi all,
Thanks very much for this. I don’t like the injunctions, but am concerned about the crime and fear that are the rationale for them. The above is enough to convince me the injunctions are a bad thing and support your efforts to stop them and redirect the money to positive causes.
I would appreciate it if you could go even further and support some sort of healing/safety effort for people who live in the targeted areas, and who do support the gang injunctions, so they have an alternative way to feel safer. It might take time and work, but this kind of grass-roots community-building would help with the underlying request that helps bring these injunctions forth.
Thank you for your efforts,
Floyd